Trita Parsi

Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council, discusses how Iranian sanctions block peaceful diplomatic solutions, making war more likely; the “risk premium” in oil prices, exacerbated by hawkish foreign policy, that hurts Iranians and Americans alike; the daunting resources and time commitment required to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program through invasion and war; the media’s increasingly conflicted narrative on the Iran “threat;” and why the Obama administration is amenable to a deal centered on Iran’s re-implementation of the NPT’s Additional Protocol.

He wrote his Doctoral thesis on Israeli-Iranian relations under Professor Francis Fukuyama (and Drs. Zbigniew Brzezinski, R. K. Ramazani, Jakub Grygiel, Charles Doran) at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies while heading the largest Iranian-American organization in the US, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).